THE FOLLOWING is an excerpt from an interview given by Cuban President Fidel Castro February. It was taken from Intercontinental Press, 15 April 1985. It begins with Castro's answer to a question on the 'process democratisation' in America.
I think that these democratic processes take on a strategic importance this time have significance.
The US administration may that democracy is advancilig. what is advancing is the crisis of the US system of domination in Latin America. This process signifies that military dictatorships decline; that resorting to repression and force to maintain the system has failed; and that the murders, sophisticated torture, the missing -things the United States taught the repressive forces, the army and the police in Latin America these atrocious methods no longer serve to maintain the system. crisis is so profound that the military has understood that these countries have become unmanageable.
They withdrawing government and transferring civilians after having totally failed in the leadership of the state and also after having ruined the countries greater or lesser degrees.
Argentina, and Uruguay they ruined LICI aegree, In Brazil, they handed country over to the transnationals so that they could go there and produce with cheap labour in the deep say but the Ine The In Chile, the midst of were imaginative.
and social problems.
and wiped out problems have what interest the interest rates.
$5,500 to pay the debt The there's an Elect those adopted In Argenthe and the protectionist you know how Selfish they This is not into governments lakes the one reacts thinking.
unemployed; dustrial French and the Spanish.
Wing to 2.6 million.
in many countries.
La financial He proposed reforms and economic aid totalling $20,000 million over several years to solve the problems of development The population is now twice as large as 24 years ago and the social multiplied. The foreign debt is 18 times greater than Kennedy proposed as aid and $40,000 Davilels million a year, $400,000 million in ten with years. So it's not a matter of whether the countries want to pay the debt or weeks.
It's that they have Brazil. no alternative; they cannot pay them If these democratic processes try - not the debt, •HIl simply the interest rates — they will be ruined politically. And the danger will not be the return of the military tor the military do no want the government even if it were given to them.
danger is a complete pollicai destabilisation and social explosion. i nat s what i say is going to occur if attempt to impose the Monetary Fund's formulae and colinterest payments.
So I suggest the following: that deficit. Latın America needs a grace perioa oI approximately 10 to 20 years as a minimum in terms of its foreign debt obligations, including the interest.
As I explained in the beginning, problems of unequal exchange measures will have to be solved for the development of trade. In other words, it would only be a breather for a new international economic order, lust a respite.
easy because the the industrialized driven countries have their difficulties. Each about its own aomestic probicus. I Have so llan 1 am undergoing inmodernisation, say the Ther Gersince mans see their unemployment climbfigure, while the British have three muon upendovneat is on une use adopted the Slates most selfish of all policies. It imposed monetary Saucill supand based on high interest rates which than extracted hundreds of thousands of millions from the world economy, including the economies of the Third World countries.
Everyone was depositing
money in the United States, because if they kept it in tne currency or ineir country, it dropped in value. would be a devaluation and for all those who had money, let's say someone with a million pesos, to use a currency with a certain value, like the Mexican devaluation, worth dropped by 25 per cent in a few The same in Argentina and With free exchange and inflation, no one was molivalca le deposit money that was not secure anywhere and it was taken abroad, attracted by high US interest rates. For the time being the United States has solved its economic problems this policy of high interest rates and military expenditures and will have to be cancelled in the long run.
nauve exiss. their debt, at least in Latin America, would be socially explosive.
What do the There civilian governments propose?
Argentine government
said that it recessive measures or allow the consequences of this debt to fall on the peoits pie, that they cannot halt develop ment. The presideni-elect other spoken in a similar vein. But if the countries have to milion everv vear. now is develor ment possible? They would have to adopt terrifying measures on top of living standards which have declined considerably. will longer Indications (American next day?
Clear elements My opinion is that no other alterTo try to collect this prices recently elected The The has clearly social Is unwilling io accept developed are for the flame. of Brazil to put it out. extract terested ment party controls sectors of the movement which refuse sacrifices. Inflation increases, strikes come one after the the social situation untenable, and the communists are not the ones stirring up protest, it is the unions, the workers, peasants, the people in general who can no longe! take the sacrifices. You see there the presence of objective factors, not sub.
Who will they blame for subverting order? It is the people who are no resigned, no longer accep: limitations on their standard of living Ah! Because the debt must be paid the interest rates and the demands of the Fund must be met.
Less than four years ago, a civilian government came to power in Peru in elections where they won more than half the votes cast and obtained a mayoritv. in parlament. Now that part' which won the elections has the support of only 3.8 per cent of the voters.
that APRA People's Revolutionary Alliance) will win the elections with a majority, but then how will it handle the debt and other social problems thi The problems of the region are clear. In my opinion, according to how people see it, there will be social revolutions, for better or for worse, there will be social revolutions if this problem Is dul solved This issue came up recently when I was asked about the tamous question of exporting revolution, and I said: it is impossible to export the conditions which give rise to revolution, because Halt to talk of subversive lila the measures of the Monetary Fund, the foreign debt, the $40,000 million in interest rates every year, the international economic crisis, the drop in the the main export modities of Latin American nations, protectionism, high interest rates, are all verv subversive factors enormous economic probiens nave cumulated and the crisis which has the objective conditions for revolution. There is no need There can be spontaneous combustion, and then not al the water in the world will be enough I think these are the factors that determine social change. I am not inpreserving the existing social order; I think it must change. Nor am I interested in preserving the svstem of Us rule ovel our cubies My view is that this order can't continue and that system of rule can't be